As part of my renovations around here, I'm going to try to write a weekly recap of the things I'm doing around gaming.
Two things
I'd like to start out each week's overview with two things that I hope you can use at your table. This week I'll lead off with two OSE NPCs suitable for use as retainers:
Bartek (They/Them), Dwarf L1, S 13 I 7 W 9 D 11 Co 15 Ch 8, Saves D 8 W 9 P 10 B 13 S 12
Description: Dark brown hair, and a long braided beard to little to cover Bartek's tattoos. They are tall and lean for a dwarf. They often appear distracted, though they are probably just bored. Bartek is a tee-totaler. They smell of soap and leather polish. Their armor is older, but well-maintained.
Motivation: Bartek wants to prove themself as a warrior so that they can return to thei mountain halls they call home. Prior experience has taught them to look for someone a little smarter to do the planning.
At The Table: speaks haltingly and a little too loudly.
Quote: "But . . . what do you . . . think we should do?"
Tenriss (She/Her), Thief L1, S 10 I 8 W 9 D 14 Co 9 Ch 12, Saves D 13 W 14 P 13 B 16 S 115
Description: Bald, but has several wigs. Likes to wear bright colors when not working. Always has a dagger at her hip.
Motivation: Tenriss' family were once well-to-do merchants, but fell on hard times. She wants to live the high life she remembers and is willing to bend a few rules to make that happen.
At The Table: laughs nervously when speaking
Quote: "Mmm, that is good wine. It reminds me of sipping from my father's collection when I was little."
What I'm reading
I'm continuing my reading and working with Downtime in Zyan by Ben Laurence. It's hitting the sweet spot for my desire to make downtime more useful/interesting in my campaigns. I'm also trying to push for the GM of my Wednesday game to pick it up for his game. It should be on sale soon, once the kickstart distribution is complete.
I'm also looking harder at substack. I've been reading articles from Sean McCoy and Monte Cook among others. These are dribbling into the advice I'm giving my Wednesday GM as he continues to tweak and playtest the game we're playing.
Offline, I recently got copies of Swords of the Serpentine which I'm reading when I'm away from my phone and laptop. It's making me think about Cities as Point Crawls (from a Ben Laurence blog post), which I'm diving into a bit deeper.
What I'm writing and drawing
I'm currently working on itchfunding a small set of maps, with some modest financial goals though not much success. The finished product will be a set of three cavern maps in a variety of gridded, labeled, and player-facing options with a document of cave/cavern/Underdark flavor and a system-agnostic key for each map by the time it's done. The set is currently selling for $1 and will gradually increase in price to $7.50 as I complete the various pieces. Of course, buying in at a lower level will give you access to the whole set from that time on out.
Last week, I wrote a quick post about using Obsidian for my gaming note-taking.
What I'm playing, running, and planning
Seven Sons - On Wednesday, last week, we crawled around the town of Ila, where we've been digging into a conspiracy that seems centered around some of the merchants and a coven of witches. One of the PCs was invisible and tailing a merchant named Agatha, who seems caught up in the conspiracy. We tried to follow him - which proved harder than we'd thought.
Hochheim - The PCs in my Thursday game, have returned to the Climbing Tomb. Fought off some scarecrows, and went through the portal to the Green Hell. Last session, they trekked through the wilderness (only getting lost once) and eventually reached the edge of the rift containing I1 - Dwellers of the Forbidden City, where they hope to find the second piece of the broken Star of Dralm. This week, they scouted from the rim and Aerix, the druid, changed shape into a songbird and flew over parts of the ruins to see what he could learn. We left off the game after they'd descended a crumbling path the floor of the rift.
Set up for OSE - I ran a session 0 for 4 players on Friday. None of them have played OSE before, and one has never played any TTRPGs. We generated characters and set up expectations for the game. They're going to be playing through Winter's Daughter, based out of the Keep of B2 fame. If it goes well, the PCs may push on to explore the Caves of Chaos.
As part of my prep, I created a couple of spell books (inspired by Ben Laurence's Ten Starter Spellbooks and W Denning's How I Prep Con Games). If you're interested, here they are:
The Praxis of the Higher Planes
A tattered copy of a copy. Most of the really interesting stuff is missing, but this could be a good starting point for researching spells pertaining to light, vision, and the effects of the higher planes. It contains the following: (1) Light, Protection from Evil; (2) Invisibility
The Libram of Controlled Perigression
Copied from the original by an unreliable scribe, an apprentice of Ogrindar the Baleful (who has the original in their possession), this work could provide the foundation for research into controlling access through physical spaces. Any real work would require other works, including the original from which this volume was created. It contains the following spells: (1) Hold Portal, Shield; (2) Knock
No comments:
Post a Comment